Mothering Sunday

Picking up from last week's post, this is the sight I'm greeted with every morning when I return from my daily constitutional. You gotta love a narcissi.

In a few hours, my gorgeous daughter, Jo, is treating me to a meal at the Kings Arms in Mickleton in lieu of tomorrow’s celebration. Hopefully I’ll remember to take some pix and share them here.
Yesterday. My fabulous hubby, Brian, made a comment about the timing of this celebration, because the house is filled with my favourite flowers from our garden, namely daffodils and camelia. That’ll be where the missing vase went then!
I knew I had a spare vase on the kitchen windowsill, but when I went to put a few blooms in it to brighten Jo’s room it wasn’t there. Here’s me ranting about how I must be going crazy, hoping to prompt him into owning up he’d broken it, but he focussed really hard on the gadget he was fixing. Some kind of detective I am – the clues were all there! Got there in the end, though.

His comment was off the back of my annual rant about how Mother’s day always falls on the shortest day of the year (literally only 23 hours long because they rob us of an hour), and it’s usually far too cold to sit outside.
Whereas Father’s day falls within a week of the longest day of the year and all the gang are pretty much guaranteed to turn up and share an al fresco meal. But not a barbie since we retired it due to lack of use!

I first noticed the disparity when I was heavily into pagan rituals, travelling down to Avebury every solstice to watch the sun rise and join in the celebrations with drumming, fire-poi and awesome ales from the Red Lion.
Many times, it fell on Father’s day and I’d have to do the rounds of my hubby, his father and my father before I could even think about driving down there. But I somehow managed it.
Nowadays, I’m happy just to raise a glass on the evening before and light a candle. You can pretty much guarantee I’m up at sunrise to go for a pee, so I always look East and fire off a blessing.

Spring has Sprung

We arrived at our Welsh caravan on 3rd March to open it up for the new season, to be greeted with the news the stream which a few dozen yards from our pitch had flooded, invading our next-door neighbour’s garden storage bin, rendering their lawnmower unusable.

Thankfully, ours was okay and we got everything set up in reasonable time, the major snag being the hole in the poo-bag wasting a precious half-hour searching for Sasha’s bowel-dump amid the thousands of poo-shaped/coloured mini pine cones. And the inevitable 3 times it took to reconnect the water hoses after the pressure had blown them off twice. And we won’t go into the gory details about my thumb getting trapped in the collapsible clothes dryer – just thank goodness I always bring ice for the 5pm G&T!
With below-freezing overnight temperatures, we had the gas fire and several electric radiators on all night – a first. We kinda missed the Shrove Tuesday pancakes, but because I had flour, I tried making some for Wednesday breakfast. Note to self: lard works so much better than butter/oil.

A mere fortnight later, the second jaunt couldn’t have been more different. We travelled down in record time – only 2hours/5 mins door-to-door (thanks to absence of loo-stop!) – and were unpacked and settled in after a swift half hour. Glorious!

The two walks around Machynlleth and Darowen hills were fabulous, and Thursday’s equinox brought with it 19°C and sunshine! I even managed to scrub down the two North/East-facing outside walls which the winter months always turn green. That’s half the job done.
Spring always brings out the best in Wales with several thousand hosts of golden daffodils, and best of all are the adorable newborn lambs – even the most curmudgeonly grouch couldn’t fail to be enchanted by their antics as they prance, leap and gambol around their ever-vigilant mothers. Proper little joybringers.

This is the farm on my favourite part of the walk around Darowen and, for most of the season, there's a cute farm shop filled with the tastiest courgettes, garlic and a myriad of vegetables. Definitely a highlight of our stays in Wales.

Time Doctors #3 - D & D Scenario

Bletchley Park
Back to Isaac as Dungeon Master, this one is a complete step-up in terms of the characters, plots and complexity.

Time Doctors #2 - D & D Scenario

Cursed Castle
This time, Kev has a go at creating a brand new scenario, based on experiences with a buddy who works in Warwick Castle dungeons.
The characters are loosely based on the TV show Most Haunted, with the addition of Kev's irascible Jester throwing spanners in the works at every opportunity.

What started out with the potential for great fun, quickly turned edgy, and spiralled into darkness when one of the players disappeared.

Time Doctors #1 - D & D Scenario

Tangled Warren
The first Time Doctors story starts at the end of a D&D adventure in the Savage Caverns, with the team chasing after a basilisk.

At the end of that long running campaign, the gang embark on a brand new scenario, created by Jen, based on her favourite all-time movie, Labyrinth.

Each of the characters is based on one from the movie, and the gang have great fun deaiing with similar escapades in their quest to solve the puzzles and save the world.